Bakradze in Vilnius: mission impossible

2009-12-02 17:43

Over the past few years Georgia has been a close friend to Baltic states. Three Baltic republics and the Transcaucasian state have been pursuing similar anti-Russian foreign policy. Until recently the Balts have been trying to trace Russia's "aggressive" and "treacherous" actions that allegedly "threaten democracies" in post-Soviet space.

gt-en-articleitem-300x250

Even now that Saakashvili regime is rapidly losing trust in the West Georgian authorities are trying to boost their diplomatic activities in Baltic states sending Speaker of Georgian parliament David Bakradze on an official visit to Vilnius to take part in the Parliamentary Assembly of Baltic States. In Vilnius David Bakradze met with his colleagues from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. The Georgian Speaker thinks the Baltic PA is a very important structure embracing countries that provide active support to Georgia.

In his opinion cooperation with this structure offers Georgia an extra channel to communicate with European parliamentary structures that (by the way) decided to leave the "Georgian issue" alone at PACE session in January in Strasbourg. That's why the Georgian president's brother-in-arms in charge of the Georgian parliament decided to draw attention to Georgian issues again (at least for the Baltic states). And he did it quite awkwardly.

In an interview disseminated by Lithuanian media Speaker of Georgian parliament David Bakradze asserts Georgia has no political forces that could "put up with the Russian occupation". (This is a slang denomination of Russia's recognition of independence of the two South Caucasian states).

In this way Bakradze is trying to disavow recent statements of two opposition leaders of Georgia - Levan Gachechiladze and Zurab Nogaideli who think that South Ossetian and Abkhaz issues can't be solved without dialogue with Moscow. David Bakradze clumsily juggles with the facts stating that Russia must abandon an illusion that with the change of Georgia's political leaders its actions will be legalized.

The Georgian speaker also stakes at spreading the anti-Russian sentiment in Vilnius. "I think Lithuania which is a small country understands us very well", - Bakradze said.